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Our Wonderful Speakers!
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Francette Fey
Living with her most amazing 10 year old daughter in South East Michigan, Francette has found her home.
Home had always seemed elusive until the birth of her only child. The baby arrived with a gift:
the key needed to free what was in her mother's heart. Through her daughter, Francette discovered
she could be at home in her own skin. She very much wants to be a "full time" stay at home mom,
but current circumstances require that she enjoy being an on-campus and online
instructor/facilitator at the local University and College. Although Francette works as an academic,
she and her daughter have only known the free and happy lives of unschoolers.
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Francette's Talk: R U Parenting?
Unschooling is fundamentally an educational philosophy based on children learning by living in the "real"
world as opposed to the artificial environment of school, or school at home. The rest of the child's
unschooled life often looks like any other schooled child’s life minus the school work. Radical unschooling
approaches the entire life of a child from the radical perspective that children live consensually with their
parents. Their lives look very different from the lives of other children. It is often misconstrued that
parents become less involved in the child’s life, but nothing could be further from the truth. Francette
will discuss the joys and challenges associated with parenting the unschooled child.
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Idzie Desmarais
Idzie is a 19 year old unschooler, whom some people seem to have decided is now “grown”,
though she’s not so sure about that yet. She’s a passionate unschooler, unapologetic green
anarchist, good (and healthy!) food loving vegetarian, earth-feeling animist, and proud hippie.
Idzie takes great joy in spending time with her family and friends, writing and blogging lots,
and talking non-stop about the things she believes in. One of the things she devotes most of her
time talking, writing, and blogging about is unschooling! She sees it as both a wonderfully fulfilling
way to “get an education”, and on a larger scale as a force for positive change in the world.
Idzie is delighted to be able to share her passion, experience, and knowledge of a lifestyle she
holds close to her heart!
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Marina Deluca-Howard
Marina DeLuca-Howard lives with her partner, John, and their three children in down-town Toronto.
Parenting takes up most of her time -- most of which is full of delightful surprises.
In addition to hanging out with her children, she has sat on the Board of Karma Co-operative twice,
been a La Leche League Leader, edited the Home Rules newsletter for the OFTP briefly and co-ordinated a homeschooling conference.
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Marina's Talk: How Does School's Existence Affect Us?
Deschooling is a surprisingly far-reaching process, especially for parents, because school rituals and language have
embedded themselves so deeply in our psyche. Noone speaks of a three year old, but of "pre-schoolers". At fourteen my
son Rowan is an amazing young man. He is confident and curious. I can see that treating him as a "life partner"
rather than a submissive in a relationship is creating lots of room for him to grow into a thoughtful young man.
But there is no roadmap to creating an exceptional child. If your motive for choosing to live freely is love and
joy the possiblities are endless. Don't model kindness, just be kind. Don't model respect, just be respectful.
Schooling is about ends, unschooling is about means. Deschooling involves developing trust and learning to find
what's important. Unschooling is about relating and concensus. It's about exploring the world passionately.
It's about finding a way.
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